


Saving Grace

by Rei Kinneas (beatperfume)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-21
Updated: 2010-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatperfume/pseuds/Rei%20Kinneas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's going to save his brother. That's all that matters.</p><p>(Spoilers for Devil's Trap and all of Season 1)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saving Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks go out to my betas wrenlet, thestickboyofpa, and poisontaster.

_You keep running for another place  
To find that saving grace_

_Don't you baby?_

_-Tom Petty_

 

Sam was wrong.

He thought he'd finally figured it out, what Dean had been trying to drill into his head for a year now. Some things are more important than revenge.

He was wrong.

There's only one thing more important than revenge and that's Dean.

\---

The Demon has gone to ground somewhere, its trail getting colder every hour and Sam doesn't care. Instead, he's driving across West Texas in a beat up Toyota pick up truck. It's overheated on him twice so far, but it's the best he could come up with on short notice.

West Texas is empty and desolate. Sam's always thought so, but it's even more true now. It's been hours since he's seen another car. Days since he talked to another person.

He's never felt more alone.

All alone in the middle of the desert, it's easy to get confused about what's real and what isn't. Like maybe Sam's the one in the hospital bed dreaming this all up and Dad and Dean are by his side, waiting for him to wake up.

But his eyes are gritty with exhaustion, his back aches from too many hours driving, and his t-shirt is soaked through with sweat. This driving need is maybe the realest thing he's ever felt.

He's going to save his brother. That's all that matters.

\---

Dad didn't want him to go.

"You're not fully recovered, Sam," he said. They were in the hospital parking lot because Sam wanted to leave as soon as possible and Dad didn't want to argue in front of Dean.

"I'm fine," Sam said. He checked the rounds in Dean's .38 and put it in the glove compartment. Just in case.

"You're not fine and Dean will want you here when he wakes up."

Sam didn't bother answering the question about his health again. He knew Dad was worried, but it wasn't something he could think about right now.

"I know you don't believe me, but this isn't natural. I can feel it. Something is stopping him from coming back to us. I have to find out what it is."

"Sammy…"

"If I'm wrong and he wakes up, you'll be here. You can call me. And in the meantime, you can protect him."

Dad opened his mouth to argue again, but Sam stopped him.

"Dad, I need to do this. I think I'm the only one who can."

And Dad didn't like it, but he knew well enough by now that he couldn't stop Sam.

"Be careful," he said, but Sam didn't reply.

Because if there was one thing he was beginning to learn, it was that Dean wasn't just more important than finding the demon, he was more important than pretty much everything.

\---

Van Horn is just off the interstate but looks like a ghost town. If it weren't for the eyes Sam can feel watching his truck from behind shuttered windows, he would swear that no one lives here.

He has no written directions, but he makes no wrong turns and stops in front of a brightly painted house with a lone soccer ball in the yard. His sneakers kick up dust on his way to the door and it sticks to the sweat on his face and arms.

A young girl opens the door to his knock, big eyes and dark hair long and tangled down her back.

"Mama!" she yells and opens the door to let Sam in.

Consuela Navarro is a small woman with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue. Sam thinks that Dean would love her.

She looks at Sam like she's looking into him and says, "Come in, _hermanito_, we have a lot to talk about."

\---

Consuela refuses to talk about "business" until Sam's had something to eat.

"You won't do anyone any good if you collapse. Eat."

So he sits in her kitchen and eats while the kids run around playing a game that Sam can't figure out the rules of. He suspects there are none.

Consuela is only a few years older than Sam, but she already has three children. The girl who answered the door, Elba, is the oldest, and the two identical boys, Miguel and David, clearly worship the ground their sister walks on. Watching them makes Sam's heart ache, even as he smiles.

Elba will be like her mother, he knows. Her eyes are too sharp for a six year-old and sometimes when she looks at him, he feels goose bumps rise on his arms.

He checks his cell phone four times, but Dad hasn't called. He knows that's a good thing, so he resists the urge to call and check up.

No matter how much he wants to.

\---

Sam woke up in the reclining chair in Dean's room to find Dean sitting up at the edge of his bed.

"Dean!"

Sam tried to get up, to go to his brother and hug him or punch him, anything to reassure himself that Dean was alive and awake and real.

But Dean opened his mouth and Sam couldn't move.

Dean opened his mouth, and no sound came out. His mouth was full of darkness, and it started seeping out, wrapping around Dean, sinking into his skin and leeching it of color.

It seeped into his eyes and turned them black.

Then Dean convulsed and fell back onto the bed. He convulsed again, his back arching unnaturally far off the bed and he was screaming, but not making a single sound.

Sam struggled to move, but he couldn't; he could only watch Dean writhe in pain and he couldn't scream, so Sam screamed for him.

Sam woke up in Dean's hospital room, screaming, his Dad and two nurses bending over him.

He assured them he was fine, just a nightmare, and the nurses clucked and nodded, said that it was understandable, what with everything that happened. His Dad just looked grim, but didn't ask any questions.

An hour later, he got a text message. It said _Come to Van Horn_.

\---

Sam wakes up with Dean's name on his lips and a spring from the couch digging into his hip.

It's dark and the VCR informs him it's well past midnight.

The only light in the house is coming from the kitchen. Sam finds Consuela there at the table, drinking a cup of coffee.

"You should have woken me up," Sam says.

Consuela pours him a cup of coffee. "You need your sleep," she says.

Sam thinks of Dean screaming silently, suffocating in darkness. "It wasn't exactly restful," he says.

"If you don't open your eyes, how will you see?"

Sam has never met a psychic who can resist the cryptic phrase. He's in no mood for it now.

She pulls out a deck of tarot cards and gestures for Sam to shuffle them. It's an old and worn, but beautiful set. Sam's never seen anything like it.

Consuela lays out cards in a complicated pattern, laying card over card. Sam only knows the superficial meaning of them. The Tower. The Devil. Death.

Her gaze is unfocused and Sam can feel her reaching with her mind, using the cards, but really looking past them to something deeper.

She gestures to a part of the pattern. "This is your past. Ruled by The Tower." Her voice gets huskier, more melodic as she slides deeper into her trance.

"He came for you in the night. Watched you in your crib. You weren't asleep. You watched him back, but you didn't know to be afraid yet. He could feel your power, small and sleeping, but he knew it would grow. Little baby didn't understand what his mother was doing on the ceiling. He thought it was a game. Then the burning started and the baby started screaming."

Sam's gorge rises and he fights it down. He knows this. This is in the past. What's important now is Dean. Dean, who carried him from that burning house, who slept in his crib every night for months after.

Consuela's hands move to a different part of the pattern. "This is your present. The Devil. A Shadowman. You chase him and he eludes you. You think you're hunting him, but he's hunting you. Watching. Waiting for you to catch him so he can catch you. But you don't see. You're blinded to his true purpose, to what is really important. But he makes a mistake, opens your eyes. Strips you of your need for vengeance. He knows he may have spelled his own doom, so he tries to spell yours too."

A Shadowman. The Demon. Sam feels a surge of triumph for confirmation that The Demon is responsible for Dean's condition. But how, exactly? And what will he have to do to save Dean? Because if Dean dies … The Demon is right. It would be Sam's doom.

He looks at Consuela intently. There's one more part of the pattern left.

"Your future. Death. Not literal death, death and rebirth. Change. What you do now will determine the future for both you and your brother." Her eyebrows furrow, and Sam can see her jaw clenching. "You teeter on the edge. It can go either way. You have to -" Her words cut off abruptly and she slumps in her seat. Sam is out of his chair and at her side in an instant. She opens her eyes. "It's gone. I couldn't see anymore. I'm sorry."

Sam wants to shake her and make her look at the cards again and scream _what do I have to do?_ But he can see she's tapped out for now. She won't be able to tell him anything else.

So he helps her up and to her bed. He gets her painkillers and a glass of water. Then he goes back to sleep, hoping that in the morning, she'll know someone who can help him.

\---

Dean's mouth is full of darkness. It pushes out past his lips and down his throat. It wraps itself around him and Sam tries to close his eyes - he doesn't need to see this again. Not again. But he can't close his eyes. He's forced to watch as Dean convulses in pain again and again, his black eyes staring into nothing.

Sam starts to scream and everything goes silent.

The dream is gone and Sam is floating in darkness. It's not like the darkness that just devoured his brother. It's a warm, comforting darkness. A voice speaks.

"You need help, little brother. Come to me and I will give you what help I can."

Sam tries to ask _who are you_ and _where will I find you?_ But the voice is gone and Sam falls into a deeper sleep.

He doesn't dream for the rest of the night.

\---

Sam wakes up knowing where he has to go.

He looks at a map at Consuela's kitchen table, cleared of her cards and looking bright and cheerful in the daylight. Consuela pours him another cup of coffee.

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you more." She has tension lines around her eyes, and she winces in direct sunlight.

"You've done more than enough. Thank you."

Consuela nods and goes for the painkillers again.

When Sam is walking out the door Elba stops him with a tug on his shirt. She looks up at him, eyes wide and serious.

"Damn yourself," she says. "Damn yourself to save him."

\---

It's 725 miles back east across Texas.

Sam barely notices.

\---

He spends the night just west of Houston. The town boasts one motel and one all night diner. Sam's pretty sure he's the only patron at both. He eats quickly, mechanically, without really tasting his food. The sooner he goes to sleep, the sooner he can be ready to drive again.

He pays his check and has his hand on the door when he feels a hand grab his wrist with far more strength than the elderly waitress should be capable of. He turns around to face black eyes and a grotesque smile pulled back over rotting teeth.

"You think you can save him?" it rasps. "We have him. And soon we'll have you. You will watch them die screaming."

"Christo," Sam spits out, and wrenches his arm free when it flinches.

He runs back to the motel, salts the doors and windows. He sits in the middle of the bed with Dean's .38 warm in his hand. He can see shadows move across the window, can hear their whispers. _Come out, come out, Sammy. Your brother's gonna die, little boy._

Finally he takes the shotgun, opens the door, and fires rock salt into the night. The whispers stop, but he doesn't fall asleep until dawn.

He dreams of Dean.

\---

Humidity hits as soon as he crosses the border to Louisiana. It settles over him like a blanket, heavy and stifling. The truck's air conditioning is non-existent and opening the windows barely helps. It makes Sam lethargic. He feels weighted down and slow.

He heads north at Baton Rouge onto Highway 61 and an hour later he turns down a long driveway surrounded by willow trees and Spanish moss.

\---

"I haven't gone back," Miss Naomi says. She gestures for Sam to pour her more iced tea. "Maybe I will one day. But maybe not."

Sam nods politely, but he's impatient for her to get to the point. Her sharp eyes catch him fidgeting. She sighs and puts down her glass.

"I know your brother," she says, and Sam straightens in surprise. "He helped me out - oh about a year ago now - with a dark mambo and some zombies. He saved my life. Dean's a good boy."

"The best," Sam agrees.

"The question is, what are you willing to give up to save him?"

It's shady on Miss Naomi's porch. A faint breeze struggles through the thick air and cools the sweat on the back of his neck. The iced tea glass is cold and wet in his hand.

"Anything," Sam says. "Everything."

"Are you sure? Sacrifice means giving up something you love," Miss Naomi says. She catches Sam's gaze and holds it. "If saving Dean means never having a normal life, will you do it?" Sam doesn't blink, doesn't flinch under the weight of her gaze.

"Yes," he says without hesitating.

"Then you know what you have to do." She stands. "You'll stay here tonight. And for god's sake Sam Winchester, do some laundry."

\---

Dean sits at the edge of his bed.

"Dean!" Sam sits up, ready to go to him, to hug him or punch him, anything to reassure himself that Dean's alive and real. Dean opens his mouth and it's full of darkness.

But something's different this time. Sam's not frozen in his seat. He can move, so he does. He tackles Dean back onto the bed and slams his lips against Dean's.

Somewhere, a little girl's voice says, "Damn yourself to save him."

\---

Sam opens his eyes to sun streaming through the window. A rickety fan blows damp air across his face.

It's time to go back.

\---

"I'm coming back," he tells Dad.

"Good."

"How's Dean?"

"The same. Sam…"

"I'll be there tonight."

\---

It's almost midnight when Sam gets to the hospital. It's only been a week but it feels like a lot longer. In the parking lot he stretches cramped muscles. His eyes are dry and he feels the beginning of a headache at the base of his skull.

He'd love to sleep for a few hours or a few days before he does this, but its already been too long. One way or another, this ends tonight. Sam's too damn stubborn to think it will end any other way than Dean waking up.

Dad's in the same chair by Dean's bed when Sam walks into the room. He pauses when Dad looks up.

"Hey."

Dad actually smiles and stands and when Sam walks further in, Dad clasps his hand and pulls him into a hug.

"I know what I have to do," Sam says. Dad lets him go and gives him a solemn look.

"How can I help?"

Sam feels something in him relax at those words. There's not going to be an argument; his dad trusts him to fix this.

"Just go outside and make sure no one comes in, no matter what."

Dad nods hesitantly. "Sam, are you sure you're up to this right now?"

"This can't wait." Dad doesn't look happy about it, but he nods his agreement and leaves the room.

It's just Sam and Dean now.

He looks at Dean for the first time in over a week. Dean doesn't look any worse, but not any better either. Sam can't stand seeing Dean like this, so still, and pale, and quiet. So completely unlike Dean. He takes a deep breath and unclenches fists he doesn't remember making.

Time to get to work.

\---

When he's ready there are two circles around the hospital bed, one of salt, and one of runes. He's traced runes in holy water on himself, even though they'll probably hurt like a bitch later. He leaves the bottle of holy water and a pistol on the bedside table, within easy reach of Dean, just in case.

He holds Dean's cool hand and takes three deep breaths.

Now he's ready to begin.

He climbs right up into the bed and straddles Dean's waist. He places his hands on Dean's shoulders both to hold him down and to hold on. Then he leans down and fuses his lips to Dean's.

He sucks with his mouth and with his mind, and he can feel it. _Come on,_ he thinks. _Get the_ fuck _out of my brother and see if you can take me on._

At first it's just a trickle, the slight taste of ash and blood. He pulls harder and the rush of it is so fast and sudden, it knocks him backwards off the bed.

\---

Dark. Dark and cold.

Sam tries to open his eyes, but he can't. He can feel the hard hospital floor beneath him, his arm twisted at an uncomfortable angle, but he's frozen.

"That was very brave, Sammy." The voice sounds like his father's, but Sam knows it's not. It's coming from inside him. Inside his head. "Very stupid, but very brave."

He can't feel his feet, and there's a sharp pain in his shins, like something is climbing up his body from the inside.

"Don't you get it? I have you now, Sammy."

"Don't. Call. Me. Sammy!" And he pushes it back. He catches it off guard; the claws are gone from his shins and he can feel his ankles again. He knows it's surprised, but it just laughs.

"You think you can take me?" It pushes again, hard, and Sam goes numb up to his knees. "Dean was a prize, but you, Sam, you're what I've wanted all along. Would you like to watch as I kill your brother? Watch your own hands strangle the life out of him? Your face will be the last thing he sees before dies. I bet he'd like that."

Sam pushes, but it's prepared now, and he can't budge it. Instead, the numbness creeps past his knees, up his thighs.

He panics. He pushes, but he can't do anything, and he can't believe he was this stupid, because it will kill Dean as soon as it's done with Sam.

A warm hand brushes against his shoulder. _Calm down,_ hermanito. Consuela. There's a puff of damp air against the back of his neck. _You have the power, little brother. You just have to find it._ Miss Naomi. A finger brushes his cheek. _You take the time you need, Sam. We'll help you._ Missouri.

The numbness stops mid-thigh. Calm descends over Sam. There's power inside him, power he's never been able to control, and it's been building up like a charge, ready to overload. All he has to do is keep this thing at bay long enough for that to happen.

"You thought you could kill me?" It continues, but Sam ignores it. It's just trying to distract him. "I have them all. Your mother. Your girlfriend. Your brother. Your father. And soon, I'll have you."

A small hand slips into Sam's. A whisper across his ear. _Save him._

Inside Sam's mind, it goes very still. He's ready.

"No," Sam says. "You're not him. You're just a remnant. You're nothing. And I'm going to kill you."

Then he strikes.

It doesn't have time to scream or curse him, it's just gone in a burst of light and heat. Sam is flooded with it, so much he doesn't know if he can keep it contained.

And everything goes white.

\---

He opens his eyes to the hospital ceiling, just inside the salt circle. His legs are tingling. The room is in shambles, pictures fallen off the wall and shattered, chairs overturned. He can hear shouting outside the door.

"Sammy?" Dean asks from the bed. His voice is weak and hoarse from disuse.

Sam staggers to his feet. He needs to see, to make sure. Dean's eyes are open and look confused as hell.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty," Sam says, and passes out.

\---

"If I never go to Missouri again it'll be too soon," Dean says when they hit Illinois.

Sam slumps further into the passenger seat. The familiar leather is warm against his skin.

"Yeah," he agrees.

Dean turns up the radio and Sam looks out the window and smiles.


End file.
